On Sept. 4, a 14-year-old student shot and killed two students and two teachers in addition to wounding nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA. The suspect was taken into custody, though law enforcement officers are still investigating the motives of this incident.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 911 calls began rolling into the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office near Winder at about 10:20 a.m. As a precautionary measure, the school went into lockdown. Officers arrived at the scene two minutes later, and the suspect immediately surrendered.

“The Apalachee High School shooting was horrible,” said Fr. Maurice Emelu, a professor in the Tim Russert Department of Communication.

“A 14-year old with an AR-15-style rifle shooting in a school is something no one should ever have to see. The loss of students and teachers is a tragedy beyond words. So many people are upset, and rightly so.”

Emelu continued, “I also feel sad for the shooter because I wonder how a father could enable his child to go down such a dark path. What parental role modeling are we leaving for the younger generation? Violence like this destroys the innocence of children. It’s not a sign of strength. It’s a sign of weakness.”

The four victims who died were Mason Schermerhorn, Christian Angulo, Richard Aspinwall, and Cristina Irimie. Schermerhorn and Angulo were 14 years old and had just started their freshman year of high school. Aspinwall was a math teacher and a well-liked football coach. Irimie also taught math and cared deeply for her students.

The gunman was charged with murder and will be tried as an adult. During the tragedy, he used an AR style weapon and hid a knife in his book bag. His father was also taken into police custody and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Emelu has been conducting research about how mass shooting stories are depicted in media in different places around the world since Christmas 2020. “In the U.S.A., I focused on shootings with the most victims, starting with the University of Texas Tower shooting in 1966,” he told the Carroll News. “I also looked closely at the 2017 Sutherland Springs shooting, where 26 people died. We gathered reports from the top cable and broadcast networks and newspapers to analyze them.”

One of the findings from Emelu’s research is that the U.S. tends to be politically charged. “As a first generation U.S. citizen, it makes me wonder and sometimes curious, wondering why almost everything is political or either-or propositions, ” Emelu explained.

Another part of Emelu’s research is collecting data from school shootings so people can raise awareness and understand how these horrible events can be prevented in the future. In terms of how these stories are told, the media plays a big role in their portrayal of stories, while the audience affects how they spread.

All Barrow County schools in Georgia were closed on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6 so staff, students and families had time to mourn those that were killed. Sept. 4 was nothing short of being tragic and traumatic, as survivors had to watch classmates , pass dead bodies in hallways, as well as step through pools of blood.

“Violence doesn’t just hurt the victims,” Emelu said. “It hurts all of us.”